Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

EVENTS EDITED BY KEfTHBUSH (Left) Josh McLevy won his second-straight NETRA Hare Scrambles by winning round two in Lembo Lake. (Above) 125-mounted Todd Levesque battled heavily with McLevy, bU1 settled for sec.ond after a late-race crash. By Cheri Alix Photos by Paul Clipper, Trail Rider Magazine MODENA, NY, APR. 13 anchester Honda's Josh McLevy dominated the field by taking his second win in as many races at round two of the NETRA Hare Scrambles Series. . Over 350 riders descended on the Lembo Lake apple orchard for the race and a 5-mile course was laid out that consisted of roughly 2.5 miles of rockand mud-filled woods broken up with wide-open field sections that weaved throughout the orchard. Even though the course was extremely muddy, it was solid and fast with only one nasty hillclimb to slow the riders. Seventeen riders lined up on the AA line for an eight-lap race and Tech Tube's Bob White grabbed the holeshot followed by Dave Gunn, Todd Levesque' and Pirelli/Spectro/ AXO's Josh McLevy. At the back of the pack, was KTM/Dunlop's Tom orton, as he got taken out in the first turn and had to straighten his front end before taking off. It only took 13 minutes for the riders to complete the first lap and McLevy, who had grabbed the lead as soon as the riders hit the woods, came around with a 15-second lead over Levesque. orton had worked his way thrpugh the pack and was now in third place but still down almost a minute, followed by Hoot Owl's Ken Law, Randy McCap andGunn. By the second lap, McLevy had managed to increase his lead over Levesque to 40 seconds. By this time the leaders were heavily into lappers and the lap times had increased to almost 16 minutes. "Once we ran into lappers on the second lap, you could no longer rely on your lines from the previous lap," McLevy said. "The line you might have used on the last lap usually had someone stuck in it on the next lap. You had M to keep your eyes open and keep changing lines each lap." It was beginning to look like McLevy would once again run away with the win until the fourth lap. "1 hit a rut and started to go over the bars," McLevy explained. "My hand came off the bars and got stuck in the bark buster as I was going over. Luckily I fell to the side instead of going all the way over or 1 might have broken my hand instead of bruising it." This mishap allowed Levesque to catch McLevy as the two riders came around at the end of the lap with just two seconds between them. Both riders stopped to pit with Levesque getting out first. It was obvious on the fifth lap that both Levesque and McLevy, wanted the win and neither rider was willing to let off. Shaving over a minute off their lap times, they came around at the end of the lap with Levesque still holding onto the lead. . Back in the pack it was now Factory Connection's Rick Claxton in third followed by Patrick Timothy and P.J. Peculis. orton had been running in third but a rock got stuck in his rear brake lever bringing his bike to a complete stop. His bad luck didn't stop there. Once orton got going again a Junior rider, out spectating on his bike, rode out onto the course, T-boning Norton, breaking off his fender and headlight. The incident moved Norton down to sixth place. Out in front, Levesque was pulling slightly away from McLevy when he crashed in a rut, flying like Su perman into the mud with both hands out. "It was just impossible to hold on and keep the pace after that with the mud-covered gloves," Levesque said. By the time Levesque came around to pit for new gloves, McLevy had increased his lead to one minute, and with only two laps to go, it was imposs~ ble for Levesque to make up the lost time. After two hours of mud riding and lapping all but nine of the 150 riders on the track, it was McLevy taking the checkered flag, followed by Levesque in second. Claxton had held third until the sixth lap when he ran out of gas, putting him out of the top 10 for the day. The battle for third place came down to a battle between Timothy, orton and Peculis. On the seventh lap, Norton was able to take over third place and put some distance between himself and fourth. Timothy finished in fourth with Peculis rounding out the top five. The only Expert rider to break into the top 10 was Wes Clarke on his CR250, who also took the Expert-class overall win. This allowed Kris Mooney to take over first place in the 250cc Expert class with OJ. Us finishing second. The Junior/Mini event, run earlier in the day, had a new line up with many of the Mini riders being promoted to the Junior class and most of last year's Juniors moving on to the Amateur Oass. Taking the Mini-elass win with a comfortable margin of almost six minutes was Bob Langenback. Last year's Mini Champion, Nathan Kanney went on to win the Junior class, but only by six seconds over Jim Wesolowski. Heidi Landow won the Women's class and was the only one in her class to complete all three laps. Many new faces were also found in the ovice race which consisted of over 200 riders. After running four laps of the 5-mile course, it was Joshua Beebe taking the ovice win on his CR250. Lembo Lake Hare Scrambles Modena, New York Resuhs:ApriI13,l997 GRND CHMPN, Josh McLevy (Hon). 0/A Ie Wes Clarke O/A B: Brian Lawson OIA G Joshua Beebe (Hon). AA: 1. Todd Levesque (Yam); 2. Tom Norton (KTM); 3. Patrick Timothy (Kaw); 4. P.). Peculi. (Yam); 5. Ken Law (Yam). 250 A: 1. Kris Mooney; 2. 0.1. Lis; 3. Charles Timothy; 4. Jef! Staples; 5. Pet. Byrne. 200 A; 1, Rans Neff (KTM); 2. Steve Formanek Jr. «(aw); 3. jamie Prior (Yam); 4. justin Spinney (Yam); S. Denois Anderson (Yam). VET Ie 1. Russell Bain (Hon); 2. Mark White (5uz); 3. Scott Raymond «(aw); 4. lUck Capson (Suz); S. Ken Held. OPEN Ie 1. jim Simoock (KTM); 2. Mark Burdick (KTM). 4-STRK A, 1. Matt jalbert (Han); 2. jim Nelson (Han). • SR Ie 1. Steve Formanek (Kaw); 2.lUchard Tessier. 250 B: 1. Bob Carlson: 2. Josh Hackett; 3. Kevin Hubbard; 4. jim Bourdon (Yam); S. A.J. Snoop. 200 B: 1. Andy Briggs (Kaw); 2. Eric Rougeau (Yam); 3. Craig Hamord (Hon); 4. Gene Soolt (Suz); S. Marc Federici. VET B: 1. Lance Longo (Suz); 2. Rick Erickson (KIM); 3. Michael Knight (Kaw); 4. Alan Whitford (Hon); 5. Eric Rcinhard (KTM). OPEN B, 1. Pat Fogarty (KTM); 2. Chris Wyckoff (K~; 3. Dan Salomone (KTM); 4. Chris Craner (Hon); 5. Oon Mosher. 4·STRK B, 1. Cus Bender (Hon); 2. Bob Cagg (5uz); 3. Tom Mooney (Hon); 4. Michael Elston (5uz); 5. Kerry Koeller (Hbg). SR 8: 1. Chris Fanan (Hon); 2. Larry Piers (Yam); 3, David Kanney (Yam). SlSIC 1. Jerry Shinners «(aw). 250 C: 1. David Hence (Suz); 2, Mike Carlucci (Yam); 3. Paul Davey (Suz); 4. IUchard Dinardo (5uz); 5. Cordon Mullavey (Hon). us C: 1. Bdan Woziniak; 2. Brian Pisso; 3. Dale Waseri 4. Kevin Kessler; 5, Mike Wozniak. 200 G 1. Ryan jump; 2. Brei' Chenail; 3. Bob Hart; 4. Paul Fischitto; 5. Richard Merrill. VET C: 1. James Menard (Ylm); 2. Mike SelTill (Yam); 3. Dean Kreisner (Suz); 4. Rich Hansen (Hon); S. lames Bain (KTM). OPEN 1. Chris Panzella (Hnn); 2. Brian Saghetti c, (Hon); 3. Robert Todd (Hon); 4. Mario Can.deLine (KTM); 5. Roger Crandall (Hon). 4-STRK C, 1. jim Wal.h; 2. Ceorge Diedrich; 3. Woody Carpenter; 4. Bryan Cook; 5. Eric Poirot. SR C, 1. Mark jolley; 2. Mike jakubowski; 3, AI Camiani; 4. CharlJe Kennedy; 5. Mike O'Roorke. WMN, 1. Heidi Landon; 2. Sally Haber; 3. Oawn Silvia; 4. Pam McCann. JR, 1. Nathan Kanney; 2. fun Wesolowski; 3. Boyd Brower Jr.; 4. Joey Senecal; 5. Brian Sebben. ECEA Enduro series, Round 3 Hoess, two for two By Mark Uth, Trail Rider Magazine BELLEPLAlN, NT, APR. 6 red Hoess made it two for two, posting his second overall victory in as many tries in the young ECEA Enduro Series season. Riding a Bromely Suzuki-sponsored RMI25, Hoess used a carbon-copy 13-point score to best the field at the Breenbriar Enduro and F

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